Phase 2 of the Energy Savings Opportunity (ESOS) scheme is underway and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has recently published an interim evaluation report that details the benefits of the scheme and the impact on organisations energy efficiency so far.
Phase 2 of the Energy Savings Opportunity scheme is underway and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has recently published an interim evaluation report that details the benefits of the scheme and the impact on organisations energy efficiency so far.
Through a variety of activities including familiarisation and qualitative interviews, telephone surveys, management information reviews and in-depth case studies the evaluation report sought to demonstrate how large organisations reacted to the scheme. The surveys also aimed to understand, amongst other things, how ESOS has influenced organisational energy efficiency policy and practice.
It has been reported that ESOS has led to an increase in interest, including at board-level, in energy efficiency by 40% of compliant organisations.
Since early 2015 a third of companies surveyed had introduced or updated an action plan or strategy to meet energy efficiency goals.
Four in five compliant organisations reported some form of energy efficiency improvement in the 18 months prior to mid-2016. A third of these organisations reported that ESOS had been influential in their decision to implement at least one of these improvements.
ESOS Benefits
The ESOS Impact Assessment prepared at the planning stage in 2014 estimated a benefit from energy savings of around £2.2bn. The evaluated benefits from Phase one include saving energy consumption of 3TWh per year, £250m on energy bills.
Phase one of ESOS appears to have met with the goals outlined in the original impact assessment and can be considered a success; it is likely to be extended in terms of affected organisations although not at this stage/phase.
You can read the full report here.
There is still plenty of time to start your ESOS assessment. Whilst you cannot yet;
- Definitively determine your qualification status
- Calculate your Total Energy Consumption (TEC)
- Definitively select your Areas of Significant Energy Consumption
You can still get a head start on any energy audits for the supplies/buildings/processes that you intend to include in your Significant Energy Consumption, which should be a least one year’s energy data (between December 2014 and December 2019) assuming it hasn’t already been used for Phase One. All the other work will have to be based on energy data that includes the qualification date of 31 December 2018.
Here are the reasons for you to start NOW:
- You can get the time consuming element of building audits out of the way
- You can have a review of your data management, ensuring that when it counts, it will be available in the correct format
- You can have greater control of costs
- The BEIS evaluation showed that Lead Assessor costs peaked as the compliance date approached, get ahead of the curve for the best cost
Phase 2 has now com to an end; to learn more about current ESOS compliance in 2023, click here, or alternatively browse our range of ESOS blogs.